My fellow Harry Potter fans will be most saddened to hear that a serious accident occurred yesterday afternoon on the film set of the latest Harry Potter film that is in production. David Holmes, the stuntman for Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry Potter), was hospitalized with serious back injuries after an accident on the sound stages at London’s Leavesden Studios, in Hertfordshire, near Watford, England.
Apparently, the 25-year-old stuntman and former competitive gymnast was practicing an aerial stunt where he was suspended by a harness and was supposed to be thrown through the air by a planned explosion. Instead, the stunt somehow went wrong and he was flung to the ground.

“I can’t feel my legs,” the conscious Holmes told other crew members on the scene minutes after the accident occurred.

“It is thought he may have been caught by the explosion and hit the ground very hard,” a crew member stated. This crew member added that the stuntman was “badly hurt,” and that the injury is “a terrible shock” to everyone on the set.

“We can confirm a member of the Harry Potter production was injured in an accident,” stated a studio spokesman. “We are awaiting further news.”

“Paramedics were called to Leavesden Studios yesterday at 11:35 a.m. after a man in his 20s sustained a significant back injury,” said Gary Sanderson, a spokesman for East of England Ambulance Service. “He was stabilized at the scene and taken to Watford General Hospital.”

Holmes has since been transferred to an undisclosed facility that specializes in spinal injuries. Some media reports claim that Holmes will undergo surgery on Thursday.

Radcliffe, 19, is currently in NYC for his Broadway role in Equus that runs through 8 February and was not on the set when the accident occurred. Radcliffe and his co-stars, Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and Rupert Grint (Ronald Weasley), will begin filming later this year.

“I do the majority of the stunts but there are some where it’s too high a risk,” said Radcliffe, who is a close friend to Holmes. Radcliffe went on to describe Holmes as an “amazing gymnast.”

In addition to playing the stunt double for Radcliffe in all the Harry Potter films, Holmes had a small acting part in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (2002) as fellow Hogwarts student, Adrian Pucey. He was also a stuntman in The Golden Compass (2007).

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the last installment of the Harry Potter adventures. The first of its two parts is slated to be released sometime in November 2010. Meanwhile, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will supposedly be released 17 July 2009, after numerous very annoying postponements.